


and everything nice

by perzimon



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, Pining Keith (Voltron), food as a very imperfect metaphor for love, keith is emo for normal reasons, let keith say fuck 2018, not for intergalactic warfare reasons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-17 22:52:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15471900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perzimon/pseuds/perzimon
Summary: when he's beautiful and you love him but he can't make toast, the ficExactly eight months and four days later, Keith finds himself holding a cupcake.“Happy birthday, Keith!” says Shiro, brandishing a giant container. There is the sound of gravel from within. “Let me know if you want more, because I made plenty of extras.”Keith’s mind descends into a chaotic, swirling hellstorm of profanity and despair.Fuck, thinks Keith.“Fantastic,” says Keith.





	and everything nice

**Author's Note:**

> full disclosure i have not watched a full episode of voltron since season two, and that's when i wrote this, so please excuse the flagrant canon non-compliancy. i am crawling out of this hiatus to celebrate my beautiful, canonically gay son who cannot cook and i love him very much.

****Under duress, Keith is willing to admit that the Garrison has some redeeming qualities. Top-tier training facilities. Decent weather. A very small fraction of the student body.

The cuisine does not make that list. Sitting in the mess hall, Keith scowls and prods at a gelatinous mass that he suspects is mashed potatoes; they jiggle back mutinously.

On the other side of the table, Takashi Shirogane cuts a slice of meatloaf into bite-sized triangles, with far more care than it deserves. His index finger is perched delicately on his knife and his elbows hover primly off the table, like he's in a Michelin star restaurant instead of eating food that's portioned with an ice cream scoop.

This is the first thing that Keith has noticed about Shiro in the several months that they have been lunchmates (a product of Garrison management meddling, Keith suspects): his uncompromising — practically irresponsible — dedication to making the best out of a shit hand.

The second is Shiro’s willingness to put up with Keith himself, because the man’s patience is apparently as finely-honed as his muscles.

The third, because Keith has eyes, is Shiro’s muscles. Keith has several running hypotheses about what sort of witchcraft Shiro must have cast upon his body to cultivate his impressive size on a diet so bereft of any redeemable qualities.

A sudden and unwelcome vision of Shiro as a spectral camel, plodding gracefully through phantom sandstorms, humps swelling with stores of patience, further ruins Keith’s appetite.

He finally takes a bite of potato anyway, to stave off any more starvation induced hallucinations. It’s at once slimy and grainy, and he grimaces when it coats his mouth with a strange film.

“I’ve had worse,” Shiro says, watching Keith’s face. He pops a meat triangle into his mouth and chews placidly.

Keith regards the triangles on Shiro’s plate suspiciously. They are all equally sized and equilateral.

“During the Great Depression,” Shiro offers, unprompted, “Americans used to cook meatloaf all the time to stretch their rations.” (Shiro Fact No. 4: he has an impressive command of completely useless trivia.)

“Not sure that we should take our culinary cues from something with Depression in its name, let alone the greatest.” Despite his words, Keith snatches a triangle off Shiro’s plate and eats it. “It tastes like sadness.”

“Freshly harvested, farm-to-table sadness,” Shiro says airily, twirling a fork in the air. He puts on the voice that Keith has heard him use during campus tours. “It’s built many a generation of cadet character and morale, and allows the Garrison to meet its 10 year commitment to seeking organic, free-range, and renewable food sources, ensuring many more Meatloaf Mondays to come.”

“They couldn’t make this worse if they _tried_ ," Keith says with finality.

An odd look slides over Shiro’s face, like quicksilver, there and gone in an instant. But Keith is not his year’s most promising cadet—the most promising cadet ever to step foot in the Garrison, by most measures—for nothing. He captures the moment in mid-air, mid-second, then tentatively files it between nostalgia and hilarity. He’ll examine it more closely later, but for now lets himself bask in the twinkle lingering in Shiro’s eyes, and lets his omnipresent guard down just a little further.

Rarely does Keith execute such a catastrophic maneuver. (Fact [redacted]: Shiro’s eyes are a very steely gray, almost blue in the light).

 

* * *

 

Keith is saved from the next two Meatloaf Mondays by field trips. The first is some kind of scouting trip that was authorized and bankrolled by corporate bigwigs in suits more expensive than the sum of Keith’s material possessions. The second was a visit to the desert authorized by only Keith himself. This earns him two weeks on dishwashing duty, supervised by Shiro, who spends more of the time examining the kitchen appliances and pans than actually watching Keith.

The first day after Keith is finally released from the kitchen begins unremarkably, and would likely have continued in that fashion were it not for a knock at Keith’s door around 5:54pm.

The door opens without waiting for a response—though Keith is certain he locked it—and Shiro admits himself into the room. He sidles up to Keith, knuckles white around a small styrofoam box. It squeaks a little in protest, before it’s thrown halfway across the room into Keith’s unexpecting arms.

“I made this for you,” Shiro says by way of explanation.

When Keith opens it, this is what he finds: an ashen lump, sandwiched between two pale, squishy chunks. It’s surrounded by what can only be generously described as a heap of used matchsticks and some torn up bits of wilted lettuce. It is probably, maybe, a burger and fries. The whole ensemble is shockingly grey.

When Keith lifts the burger out of the box, it sags in a way that makes Keith recall dishwashing duty and soggy, abused sponges. When it begins to secrete a thin, reddish-brown liquid over his fingers, it’s only Shiro’s presence two feet away that keeps Keith from recoiling in horror. He swallows and reminds himself that his vaccines are all up to date.

Keith takes a steadying breath before he turns to face Shiro and finds nothing but the man in all his contagious joy, smile gleaming and guileless.

Before he can consider his options or figure out how best to phrase “I have seen actual garbage that looked more appetizing than this,” Keith hears Shiro say, “It’s fine if you don’t want to eat—,” and before he can stop himself, “Of course I want to,” tumbles from his lips.

In a fit of compassion ( _Shiro’s influence,_ Keith thinks mournfully), he decides to stop judging the book by its cover and the junk food by its foreboding odor. If he's more willing to turn a blind eye to cooking mishaps because of the softness he sees in Shiro's eyes, then that's between himself and his gastrointestinal system. He takes a tentative bite out of the lump protruding closest to him.

It feels the way memory foam looks in television infomercials, spongy and bland and beige, but swaddled in a generous layer of slime. Somehow, Shiro has married a soggy bun with the driest burger patty Keith has ever had the displeasure of consuming. Jaw working feverishly, Keith is assaulted by a truly enormous glob of ketchup lurking in wait beneath the bun. It’s applied with a generosity that Keith can only assume was meant to compensate for the fascinating parching effect of the patty.

Reigning in eighteen years of finely-honed self preservation and billions of years of human evolution, he swallows with little fanfare.

When he looks back up, Shiro’s eyebrows have practically buried themselves into his hairline and his mouth has split into a wide, dazzling grin. He looks hugely pleased and Keith feels, instinctively, the compulsion to preserve that smile.

"It’s n-not bad,” Keith lies, and tries to scrub the last twenty minutes out of his mind through the sheer force of will and the power of denial.

Shiro Fact No. 6: he is an absolute fucking shit-ass cook.

 

* * *

 

Exactly eight months and four days later, Keith finds himself holding a cupcake.

“Happy birthday, Keith!” says Shiro, brandishing a giant container. There is the sound of gravel from within. “Let me know if you want more, because I made plenty of extras.”

Keith’s mind descends into a chaotic, swirling hellstorm of profanity and despair.

 _Fuck_ , thinks Keith.

“Fantastic,” says Keith.

On some level, it is genuinely, shockingly fantastic, and Keith cannot imagine what he has done to deserve his luck. Takashi Fucking Shirogane, owner of every single record the Garrison has ever had, four time winner of Mr. Galaxy Garrison, is in his room, offering him homemade pastries for his birthday.

The half of Keith’s mind that contains his enormous admiration for Shiro is absolutely delighted. The Golden Boy himself, dedicating two hours away from his flight simulator and library vigils, his pursuit of the furthest humanity has ever reached and further, to bake chocolate cupcakes for Keith. A small, smug voice reminds him that Shiro doesn’t bake for anyone else and Keith has no interest in addressing the feelings that that stirs up.

The half of Keith’s mind that remembers the burger is horrified and readying the battlements.

“There’s a surprise inside,” Shiro says in a singsong voice, once Keith has sat in silence for quite a while.

After some searching, Keith finds a paper corner and peels the wrapper away from the cake gingerly, doing his best to take as much of the pastry away with it as he can. In the end, he’s still left with a sizable brown puck, liberally and lovingly smothered in icing.

There’s a moment of panic while Keith decides between taking the largest bite he can fit in his mouth, in attempt to minimize the duration of his suffering, or nibbling at the cupcake in hopes that he will somehow build up an immunity along the way. In the end, instinct guides him towards the former and he unhinges his jaw, like a snake, and tries to eat the entire thing without any of it touching his actual taste buds.

He can’t help but appreciate, objectively, the variation in texture. It’s almost remarkable how Shiro has managed to replicate the exact consistency of not only fruit leather, but also steamed broccoli, all in the same cake. Every so often, Keith’s tongue pushes against a particularly suspicious malleable chunk, sprinkled about like Easter eggs in the least appetizing egg hunt ever. Chewing mechanically, he involuntarily makes a faint whimpering noise that he hopes comes across as enthusiastic appreciation.

To his relief, Shiro seems totally oblivious to Keith’s current predicament. He’s laying down on the bed beside where Keith is sitting, humming a soft tune, and Keith can feel his body heat emanating from his thigh. Keith focuses on the warmth, and on how soft Shiro’s hair looks, and the gentle hum of his voice, and the sweep of his eyelashes, dangerously long over high cheekbones, and on his cologne, light and fresh, and determinedly tries to block out his sense of taste.

There’s a fleck of icing spattered above the corner of Shiro’s left eyebrow and Keith reminds himself firmly that the icing tastes like mace and he definitely does not want to lick it off.

He averts his eyes as a steady heat suffuses down his neck, swelling in a rousing crescendo in his chest. There’s a 60% chance that it isn’t the result of food poisoning. Gulping for air, Keith swallows the monstrosity.

“Good?” Shiro asks, turning his head to look at Keith. “Did you figure out what the surprise is?”

Keith shakes his head, not trusting himself to speak.

“Try another one and see if you can tell,” Shiro says, moving to open the container back up. Keith lunges, splaying himself over Shiro’s lap to smash the cover back on.

The low-grade simmer that Keith usually feels in Shiro’s presence instantly flares into something brighter and consuming. Blushing furiously, Keith scrambles for purchase, anything to steady himself. He plants his hand on Shiro’s thigh and pushes himself upright. He pulls a pillow over his lap and clasps his hands together. “ _No!_ I mean, no _thanks_. I’ve got … a _thing_ coming up. A physical thing.” Keith winces. “I’m watching what I eat.”

Shiro groans. “Don’t remind me. I’ve got to get back in shape,” he says, patting a six-pack that Keith can literally see through his shirt.

 

Before he leaves, Shiro presses a pair of fingerless gloves into Keith’s hands and wraps him up in a rib-crushing hug.

“I’m going to beat _all_ your records!” Keith calls out, as Shiro pulls the door shut behind him. “ _Before_ you get back from Kerberos.”

Shiro sticks his head back in the room. “I’m counting on it,” he says, grinning. One wink later, the door’s closed again.

Keith receives a text later that night that reads: ‘the surprise was raisins ;^)’. He takes six TUMS and falls asleep in the indentation Shiro left in his bed, swaddled in the woodsy-citrus scent of Shiro's cologne, cursing his stupid traitorous heart and wondering what ever went wrong with his taste: in men and in general.

 

* * *

 

Keith spends his next birthday in a shack, the desert sand whipping at the windows. Twelve dimes and eleven nickels buys him a chocolate cupcake at the closest convenience store.

The cupcake is delicious and not terrible at all and Keith throws it, half-finished, right into the garbage.

 

* * *

 

By the time Shiro’s spaceship and Shiro himself hurtle through the stratosphere, Keith has nearly let himself get a burger at the diner in the next town.

When they find robot lions, aliens, and an intergalactic war for freedom, he puts the matter of Earth food, edible or not, out of his mind entirely. He has more pressing issues to deal with, like whether or not mullets have actually gone out of style, how to get green goo out of his favorite (and only) jacket, and his impending mortality.

The fact is, between Zarkon and murderous artificial intelligences and the entire Galra army, not to mention that his life has somehow taken him somewhere that involves piloting an enormous, semi-sentient, magical space lion, Keith freely expects his death to look a little epic. He anticipates shouting, taking throngs of enemy soldiers with him, and he hopes that at least one person will be crying. Manfully holding back tears, at least. He thinks he’s deserved that much.

Needless to say, he’s a little miffed as he watches his life flash before his eyes when Shiro walks into the Castle kitchen wearing an apron. It says “Kiss the Cook" in looping, white cursive, and Keith feels personally affronted.

He successfully disguises his reflexive choke as an grunt of joy.

If anything, Keith can at least appreciate that Shiro’s making an attempt at normalcy, after everything he’d been through. The past few weeks made it clear that while Shiro's still the same man he was back at the Garrison, inextinguishable and steadfast, he’s understandably shaken by what he remembers from his year in Galran captivity, and even more perturbed by what he doesn’t. Keith is aware of his own reputation for being blunt, but he’s not  _completely_ heartless. So he won't tell Shiro his cooking is lethal. If a little thing like cooking helps Shiro cope, then Keith would be the last person to discourage him.

This is what he chants to himself when Shiro reaches into the oven and pulls out an unlined baking tray, one steaming, solid black mass plastered to the middle.

Suddenly, Lance comes in through the sliding doors. Keith watches as his eyes flit from Shiro’s waist, apron firmly secured, to Shiro’s oven-mitted hand. Lance’s face breaks into a wide smile.

“ _Nice_ ,” he hears Lance say, “you made cookies?” Keith decides that Lance is far more intuitive than anyone gives him credit for, because it had taken himself at least seven solid seconds to realize that Shiro was not, in fact, proudly presenting him with a hardened sample of molten rock.

Shiro turns and greets Lance with an easy smile. “Yeah, but I only made one,” he admits sheepishly. “I’m trying out a new recipe.”

Keith knows an opportunity when he sees one. While Shiro — Champion of the Galra Gladiator Pit, local bench press champion, owner a fucking _alien assassination_ _arm_ , designed to slice and batter enemies, for God’s sake — strains to pry the cookie from the baking tray, Keith knows that he can find salvation in the words, “Oh no, Shiro, it’s fine. You’ve baked for me before; Lance can have the entire cookie.”

He watches Lance reach this conclusion about 4 seconds later and they make horrified eye contact. Shiro, meanwhile, is rummaging through the kitchen drawers. He pulls out a meat tenderizer.

Lance looks caught between terror and disbelief.

Keith makes his decision. He takes a moment to steady his breathing, exhales sharply, throws good judgment to the wind, and dispenses mercy. “Lance, Hunk said he was looking for you.”  

Lance’s face crumples with relief. He tilts his head slightly towards Shiro, questioning.

Keith nods once.   _I’ll be okay, probably. If I don’t make it out of here, I want you to pilot the Red Lion._

Lance nods back. _I’ll keep you in my prayers._

Before he leaves, he turns and gives Keith the smallest of salutes.

There’s a loud crash as Shiro uses the meat tenderizer to shatter the top of what looks like — without exaggeration — hardened tar. It splinters and cracks into brittle shards, sending a puff of dust into Shiro’s face. Keith nibbles on one of the shards and commits the image of Shiro’s shocked expression, his bangs and eyebrows lightly dusted with black powder, to memory.

“Yum,” he says, and Shiro’s grin reaches his eyes for the first time in a long time. Keith marvels at the butterflies in his stomach, beyond thriving in their arid and diseased habitat.

 

* * *

 

Several weeks later, Keith is lounging around in his room, having a perfectly good time laying in bed when Shiro suddenly clears his throat. He plants his hands on the desk, stands up, knocking Keith’s chair over, and announces, “I’m going to the kitchen to cook something.”

Keith feels the blood drain out of his face. “Is that so?” he asks with a calm he does not feel.

Because he lacks a single shred of self-preservation, he trundles along dutifully after Shiro and finds himself in the Castle of Lions kitchen with Shiro, Hunk, and Coran.

No amount of wheedling could dissuade Shiro from cooking altogether, but Keith manages to convince Shiro to stick to preparing a salad. When Hunk raises a questioning eyebrow, Keith does his best to put _Shiro is a menace with a stovetop or oven_ into a look. He ends up looking somewhat constipated, which he feels should have sent the same message.

“O _kay_ then,” Hunk says, shrinking away from Keith’s increasingly pained look. He tosses something purple over to Shiro. “Here are some Arusian cabbages. They’ve got sort of a spinach-y flavor. Just cut them up and add some of the Chimeaker leaves—oh, just found some Frasea fronds in the fridge, add those too— and toss it with dressing. It’s in the orange bottle on the bottom left shelf. You can cut up some poelseyms too, if you want. ”

“Easy,” Shiro says, though Keith is almost certain that he recognizes as many of those foods as Keith himself does, which is zero of them. Shiro pulls out a cutting board and starts chopping the cabbages up with alacrity.

Some time later, while Hunk plates an assortment of sliced fruit into a beautiful flower, Shiro announces that he’s done.

“Behold,” he says. “I have made the salad.”

The fresh leafy greens and purples that Hunk had entrusted in Shiro’s hands have been transformed into a jiggling, gelatinous lump. Hunk’s eyes are as wide as Keith has ever seen them; even Coran seems to be at a loss for words.

When Keith plucks up the courage to pull a piece of the salad away with the longest fork he can find, strings of sticky slime come away with it. It reminds Keith of natto, and it smells, impossibly, even worse. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Hunk turn green.

It takes all of his not insubstantial Garrison-instilled discipline to place a forkful into his mouth, swallow it whole, and smile benignly at the wall while it slips down his throat.

It’s a testament to Hunk’s bravery that he follows suit, trying a forkful for himself, and his perfect placement as the yellow paladin, the tank of the team, that he does not vomit on the spot. He does, however, make a sudden and unexplained sprint out of the kitchen, but not before shooting Keith a look of complete betrayal.

When Allura sounds the alarm, they’re saved from having to take another bite. While Shiro’s back is turned, Keith spots Coran duck over a trash can.

Privately, Keith thanks the Galra.

It takes four hours to defend the Castle from Galra attack, and four days for Hunk to finally begin talking to Keith again. Keith flies for two hours back to Fraea to hand pick Frasea fronds from their prickly stems for four hours as an apology.

 

* * *

 

Over the course of the next months, stretching into nearly a full year, the Castle of Lions finds itself the laboratory for horrifying culinary experimentation, and Keith finds himself the lab rat.

Shiro, emboldened by the reception to his first two concoctions, has taken to cooking in his free time. Keith makes a point to occupy as much of this time as he can, away from the kitchen, for reasons he can admit are entirely, unabashedly selfish.

After some time, things even begin to feel somewhat routine, or as routine as their lives could ever be. Keith’s monthly schedule goes like this: fighting the Galra army, escaping from the Galra army, trying to find the Galra army, conducting reconnaissance on the Galra army, overthrowing the Galra army’s grip on a colonized planet, sparring with Shiro, arguing with Lance, sparring with Shiro again, uncovering secrets about the Galra army, begging Pidge to make some kind of robot dog to feed scraps to, and once every month, like clockwork, subjecting his body to some terrible, brittle pastry or horrible, oozing slop or completely-indescribable-but-altogether- _bad_ -creation while Shiro wears a tiny, tight apron around his tiny, tight waist and smiles brightly at him. All things considered, Keith wouldn’t have it any other way.

He is forced to revise this opinion one day, standing in the kitchen, gnawing on a slice of surprisingly elastic quiche. On the other side of the counter, Shiro is wearing his stupid tiny apron and laughing his stupid charming laugh as the huge robot dog that Keith had _finally_ convinced Pidge to build leaps into his arms. The pan of quiche sits between them, forgotten, entirely whole and uneaten, except for the slice that Keith is _still_ chewing on, like cud. It squeaks on every bite.

Mid-chew, the image of a slightly older Shiro, peaceful in the wake of a finished war, basking in the soft glow of the sunrise, petting _their_ future dog in _their_ future cottage in the desert while Keith prepares their breakfast hits Keith with such a force that he can feel his teeth shatter with need. In the real world, he spits out a rock-hard shard of eggshell and discards it surreptitiously behind his back.

The robot dog licks Shiro’s neck, clambering to fit its limbs more securely into Shiro’s arms.

Keith gnashes his teeth, finally biting through the quiche.

 

* * *

 

Three days later, Shiro throws all unsaid scheduling and Keith’s tenuous grip on order to the wayside and announces that he will be cooking again.

“Keith really enjoys it!” he beams, nudging Keith’s side with his elbow. Keith stumbles two steps to the side.

“I really enjoy it.” Keith says, dead inside.

Suddenly, Allura has to make an excursion to the nearest planet. “Diplomatic relations,” she says apologetically. “Really can’t keep them waiting.”

“I’ll go with you!” Coran all but shouts. “I’ve waited centuries to see those splendid pastures again!”

Pidge’s code has miraculously and spontaneously compiled. She runs out the door, mumbling something about feeling very full and having eaten a very large lunch and how code waits for no man. Or woman.

Hunk just stands up and leaves without a word.

Lance at least sounds ashamed when he turns to Shiro, looks him dead in the eye, and says, “Sorry man, no can do; lemonade cleanse and all that,” before whisking off behind Hunk. The robo-dog follows suit, tailed tucked firmly between his hind legs.

“Looks like it's just us then,” Shiro says, unconcerned about their friends’ collective flight, and Keith’s stupid heart skips a beat.

 

Shiro has decided to make stew. Keith, while unsurprised, really does not understand how it goes so poorly; a ‘stew’ literally has its full instruction in its name. Still, he is seasoned enough in the ways of Shiro’s cooking that even the lurid purple, burbling swamp that Shiro is happily stirring with a wooden spoon gives him only the slightest pause.

This is hubris, Keith realizes, somewhat belatedly. The first spoonful is barely deposited into his lips when he feels the full contents of his stomach churn. The texture of the mouthful is gooey, speckled with individual chewy bits that multiply the stew’s unpleasantness ten-fold. Keith bites into one of the bits once, twice, and a third time before it bursts. Something hot and salty flows out of them.

It's all over before Keith realizes what's happening. On instinct, he spits everything out all over the table, generously avoiding Shiro’s face. There’s nothing but silence and staring, except for the steady plopping of expelled and masticated chewy bits from the table onto the floor.

Keith breaks first. “I’m so, so sorry, Shiro. I can’t do it anymore. So many times, Shiro, so many—I stayed so, so strong, I think—I thought I was good. Oh my god. Oh my _fucking_ god. This is the _worst_ , Shiro. There really aren’t any words for how supernaturally bad this is. I really hope this doesn’t come between us, what with Voltron and all—it’ll be a great loss for the universe if we can’t form Voltron. I’m not fit to be a paladin. But we can’t form Voltron if I’m dead either. God, I did so much for Voltron, I did it all for Earth and the galaxy and you, Shiro, but. A man has limits. I’m only human. Half-alien, or whatever. _Fuck_.” He takes a deep breath and stares at his best friend and beloved. “Shiro, you are the best man I’ve ever known. You are also a shit cook. Never cook again.”

He regrets it immediately when he sees Shiro purse his lips into a thin, wavy line, chest heaving. He’s standing close enough for Keith to see that his lips are trembling. Keith realizes with horror that his eyes are bright with tears.

“Oh my god, Shiro, no—don’t cry, _please_ don’t cry, I could never live with myself if I made you cry—not to mention that I went through all this trouble to keep you from crying in the first place, but of course, this isn’t about me, it’s about you, except in every way that it’s about me, which is just that it’s all my fault. Haha, it was a joke!!” he attempts feebly. Regretting every moment of his life that has led up to this one, he raises another spoonful up to his mouth, as his mind and his body fight to a standstill—his arm trembles in midair while his mouth point blank refuses to open.

Shiro slumps over on the table, burying his head between his arms. His shoulders are shaking.

“I’m sorry, Shiro! I swear, it’s not you! It’s me!”

At that, Shiro picks his head up. “No, Keith, it’s me,” he manages between heaving breaths, before clasping his hands over his mouth and nose. There are real tears streaming down his face and he’s making little whimpers and choking noises. Lance is going to have Keith’s head for making his hero cry. Keith is going to have his own head for making his hero cry.

“No, no, no, Shiro. Listen to me. You’re the best fighter I’ve ever known and you can get through this. You can kick my ass after this, I swear. I’ll kick my own ass, if it’s possible — just, _Shiro,_ _please_ —” Keith places both of his hands onto Shiro’s wrists, pulls them apart to hold Shiro’s hands and Shiro —

snorts. Then bursts into raucous laughter.

“ _Oh my god_ , Keith. The _noise_ you made!” he howls between gasps.

“Are you…” Keith tries, scooting in closer while Shiro cackles, “feeling well?”

“I should be asking _you_ that,” Shiro says, gasping for air. “I can’t — _cannot —_ believe just you ate that.”

“Was it… _not_ for eating?”

“It was conceptually made for eating, _”_ Shiro evades, composing himself somewhat. “The execution, though. _Shocking_.”

Keith’s expression sets off another peal of laughter.

Finally, Shiro clutches his chest, takes two calming breaths, looks Keith right in the eye and says, in that earnest way of his, “Keith. I am _very_ bad at cooking. I have always been the _worst_ at cooking.”

“The worst.” Keith echoes. He hears his own voice from a million miles away.

“The worst.” Shiro agrees, nodding emphatically. “Why do you think I’ve always forked out money for a meal plan? I was practically the only instructor with one.”

When Keith doesn’t respond, he adds, “Well, I can technically cook a _little_. Pasta is usually fine, if I don’t get distracted. I can boil eggs and make instant oatmeal. I made pretty good fried rice one time, the summer after high school.”

Keith finds his voice. “Shiro, you fucked up _salad. You fed it to us. I ate that shit with my own mouth.”_

Shiro cringes. “Yeah, that was … testing a hypothesis,” he says meekly.

It takes Keith a moment to process what he’s just heard. “This. _Whole_. **_Time_**.” he begins. “You’d better fucking explain.”

Shiro has the audacity to sigh. “Well,” he says, propping his elbows onto the table, “I don’t know if you remember that time I brought you a burger at the Garrison, but—”

“I remember.”

“Ah, well. That’s when it all really started. You were complaining about how bad the food was, so I wanted to do something for you. I’m sure you remember how that went,” he laughs. When Keith’s stare turns murderous, he quickly continues, “I tried to make you a burger, but obviously it was so horrible that I only brought it to you so we could laugh at it. I was planning to take you to the diner afterwards, but I never expected you to actually go for it. Honestly, it was very horrifying and impressive and touching.”

Keith barely lets Shiro finish speaking before he leaps across the table, fists flying, stew flying, and tackles him to the ground.

“Oof, Keith! Ouch, hold on! Let me finish,” Shiro says breathlessly, holding Keith at arm’s reach with an ease that Keith will think about after he has murdered Shiro. “I thought it was really sweet that you didn’t want to hurt my feelings! Really, really sweet.”

Keith’s body, realizing that his mind and sanity have long since left the premises, goes slack. His face flushes a deep red and Shiro lets him down on the ground next to him.

“Ugh,” says Keith, burying his face in his hands.

“So sweet,” Shiro coos.

“Color me shocked that you even have a basic grasp on flavor. I truly had thought you had had no idea what sugar or salt even were.”

“You seem to have done a pretty good job coloring yourself red,” Shiro says, and Keith dreams of nothing but murder-suicide. “Besides, you’re all the sweet I need.”

Keith ascends. He can’t decide whether or not he wants to flay Shiro alive or demand compensation or kiss the beautiful fool. In the meantime, he rolls over onto his back and throws his right forearm over his eyes. “Ugh,” he repeats.

“Your facial expressions were _priceless_ ,” Shiro adds, with no regard for his own health. “Very valiant effort at a poker face. You’re better suited towards interplanetary diplomacy than you think.”

Keith levels a glare at Shiro, in Shiro’s general direction, and at the fabric of reality that placed him in this particular space-time. “Shiro. Do you even know how terrible that burger was? I couldn’t eat meat for 3 weeks. _I couldn’t poop for days,_ ” he hisses.

“You could have just told me it was terrible,” Shiro points out, and while he’s not wrong, he’s definitely not right.

“You may have noticed that I don't always make good decisions.”

“Mm. Lucky me.”

They lay there for some time, quiet, on the kitchen floor. Shiro has slid his arm underneath Keith’s head; it makes a much better pillow than the floor and Keith is willing to accept it as the apology that Shiro has technically never issued. They’re close enough for Keith to feel their hearts beating in tandem; at first slowly, then gradually faster.

When Keith turns and looks up, Shiro’s already looking back down at him with unmistakable affection in his eyes. His cheeks are still flushed from his laughing fit, his lips pink from biting, and Keith’s heart _aches_ to know what they feel like beneath his own.

“Speaking of bad decisions,” Keith begins, wrapping his hand around the back of Shiro’s neck, craning upwards and leaning into him until he can just feel the Shiro’s hot breath against his cheek, “cut me off if this—”

Shiro reacts with reflexes that speak of years of training and quickly clasps his left hand over Keith’s mouth, just centimeters away from his own.

Keith feels his heart deflate, fall out of his throat, and begin to set free fall speed records. The gag reflex he didn’t realize he still had threatens to make itself known.

“No, no, no, don’t get me wrong,” Shiro says quickly, eyes twinkling. “I’ve wanted to kiss you for months now. I’m ready, if you’re ready.” He lowers his hand from its place over Keith’s mouth to trace his thumb lightly over Keith’s bottom lip. His fingers wrap gently around Keith’s jawline. His other hand runs lazily through Keith’s hair.

But there’s no way I'll let our first kiss taste like that,” Shiro says solemnly, nodding towards the stew, still spreading across the floor. “Can you brush your teeth or something?”

From where they’re having a picnic under the yellow lion, Lance, Pidge, and Hunk can hear Keith’s scream of fury.

**Author's Note:**

> please......... what is happening in voltron. why does keith have a wolf........ where is slav .... are there just millions of shiros running around or is there just the one ......... i must know 
> 
> also, pls follow me and/or rec me accounts to follow on tumblr and twitter!! i'm perzimon on both of them and desperately need somewhere to channel my rapidly reviving obsession with voltron
> 
> also what are the latest memes


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